Written and edited by Norm Scott:
EDUCATE! ORGANIZE!! MOBILIZE!!!
Three pillars of The Resistance – providing information on current ed issues, organizing activities around fighting for public education in NYC and beyond and exposing the motives behind the education deformers. We link up with bands of resisters. Nothing will change unless WE ALL GET INVOLVED IN THE STRUGGLE!

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Leonie Haimson sent this to her listserve. If anyone has answers leave a comment and I'll forward them. Or email me.
--------------------
NYT story on the mediator’s decision below. I have so many questions about this whole matter still, which I would like people on the list to answer if they can.

The turnaround plans of course made no sense in the first place to me but then most of what DOE does make little sense.

The decision was a victory for the United Federation of Teachers and the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators. They argued that the plans to recast the 24 schools, known as turnaround schools, ran afoul of contracts and contrasted with more deliberative ways that city schools are usually phased out.

1. BUT is a phase –out really “more deliberative” or better in any sense?
Or is it worse, meaning ALL the teachers at the phase-out school can ultimately be excessed, and ALL the students in schools like Robeson and Jamaica suffer the damaging effects as the school is phased-out, including fewer services and classes year to year as the death-watch continues?

Also, as the “new” schools put in place of the phase out school exclude the sort of high-needs students in the original school, making the supposed “improvement” hard to judge – these same sort of at-risk kids are sent to other schools nearby, which then causes them to struggle and ultimately be shut down. Isn’t it better to keep the same kids in the building at least? If this strategy was merely an attack on the union in the first place, why didn’t DOE use the phase-out model for these schools? Is this still a possibility for the admin now?

2. Which leads me to this question: why did the DOE choose this version of “turnaround” rather than their usual “phase-out” – b/c of the fed funds in the SIG grants cannot be applied to phase-out schools? But Walcott said that even if they didn’t get SIG money they were intent on doing this anyway.

3. Or was the DOE prevented from choosing this model in the first place, because these 33 schools – now 24 schools -- many of them in Queens and at 100% utilization or more, are so vastly overcrowded and there are so few other large high schools left, the phase out model simply wouldn’t work? b/c as enrollment is reduced in these buildings at much lower levels, as the old school phases out and the new ones phase in (with enrollment capped at lower levels) there would be nowhere for the students who would have attended the original schools to go?

Also, Baker writes this:

The plans have included replacing all the principals, screening the existing staff and rehiring no more than 50 percent of it.

Yet nearly from the beginning, Walcott and those in charge of this process at DOE have said there would be NO 50% quota for firing or rehiring. King’s decision last week in which he said he would allow the granting of the SIG money only if at least 50% of the staff was replaced seems to contradict the DOE assertions.

So why did DOE insist otherwise? Was it b/c of the union contract that said at least 50% of the staff must be kept on? And if the idea was really to attack the union, what’s stopping the DOE from doing phase-out now? The idea as expressed above that this would cause even more chaos?

DOE “closures” of 24 schools violate union contracts, says arbitrator

June 29, 2012

The Department of Education has tried to “close” 24 schools and
immediately re-open them under new names. An independent arbitrator has
found that, for purposes of our contracts, the “new” schools that the
DOE claims it is creating this way are in reality not new schools.
As such, the DOE’s attempts to remove half the personnel in these
schools are a violation of the school district’s contracts with the
unions.
Based on this decision, the current staff in these schools has the
opportunity to remain there for the next school year, though those who
have found new positions elsewhere are free to go to those new jobs if
they choose.
This decision is focused on the narrow issue of whether or not the
mayor’s “new” schools are really new. The larger issue, however, is that
the centerpiece of the DOE’s school improvement strategy — closing
struggling schools — does not work. Parents, students and teachers need
the DOE to come up with strategies to fix struggling schools rather than
giving up on them.

Join us at the 1-Year Anniversary
Celebration of the Upper West Side community campaign to create a
neighborhood that upholds ethical business practices.

I was told about this event by a friend. My parents were both ILGW - my mom was an operator starting in 1920 and working until I was born and my dad was a presser through the early 1980's. This is more about sweatshop restaurants than the classic version of sweatshops but I am looking forward to checking it out.

1-Year Anniversary Celebration

June 29, Friday, 6-10pm 214 W. 97th St

214 W. 97th St

(between Amsterdam & Broadway)

Food & Drink, Music & Dancing

*program starts at 7pm

Join us at the 1-Year Anniversary Celebration of the Upper West Side community campaign to create a neighborhood that upholds ethical business practices.

Come celebrate our victories and accomplishments, including Tomo Sushi, Shun Lee Palace, U Like Garden, Land Thai, V&T Pizzeria, as well as the Saigon Grill Boycott, the city-wide launch of the Domino's Pizza Boycott, and 60 small businesses that pledged to be "sweatshop free."

Of all the attacks and issues affecting educators, some might be surprised that the high stakes testing issue is causing a level of activism amongst the broadest swath of teachers. Why? Well, that is the issue affecting most teachers, even those not under direct personal attack. This is especially true of elementary school teachers, the group often considered the least militant group of teachers. Just the other day 2 teachers showed up to a Change the Stakes meeting pretty much out of the blue, fed up at how their teaching has been purloined. I should remind people that Ed Notes was taking these positions from the very beginning in 1996-7 and that was one of the issues that attracted people who eventually formed ICE in 2003. We were the only caucus to take on that issue and continued to do so through the 2004, 07, 10 UFT elections. NYCORE also took on this issue and that was one of the points that brought ICE and them together, the foundation of GEM. You'll note that our movie goes beyond a simple critique of Waiting for Superman but takes the testing issue head on.

So I am pleased to see that the new caucus, MORE, which combines elements of all the activist groups out there, has taken this position.

Earlier this month, members of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) voted by a nearly 90 percent majority to give the union authorization to call a strike. Actually, around 8.5 percent of the union membership didn't vote, so they were counted as "no" votes. So among CTU members who voted, 98 percent said "yes" to strike authorization: That's 23,780 yes to 482 no. The overwhelming support for strike authorization seemed to confuse the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO Jean-Claude Brizard, who likes to assure us that he loves and respects teachers as he destroys our schools and degrades our union. But the vote didn't come as a surprise to me.

Here's why I voted, along with the vast majority my brothers and sisters in the CTU, an enthusiastic "yes" to strike authorization.

Reason No. 1: As has happened to me every spring since 2008, I was warned by my boss in March that my preschool teaching position was threatened for the following school year due to budget cuts. As I have done every spring since 2008, I spent countless hours readying my resume and my teaching portfolio, combing the want ads, and annoying my colleagues looking for another job for this coming fall. With a son, a mortgage, very little savings and a job that I love and would grieve to loose, I tried to muster the enthusiasm necessary to hunt for another job while simultaneously remaining the kind of "super-teacher" that we're expected to be in order to maintain an evaluation rating that would allow us to be hired by another principal. In May, I was informed my job was safe, but my assistant teacher's wasn't. Due to budget cuts, she's being replaced with a cheaper, part-time version.

Reason No. 2: May is supposed to be a wonderful month for preschool teachers: We ready our student's yearlong work portfolios and bask in the glow of their progress and reminisce about how far we've come. We go on field trips and have culminating projects that we enjoy sharing with our students and families. We look forward to summer break. We begin to say goodbye to the little people we've nurtured and loved and taught for the proceeding nine months. This May, I spent the entire month, as I have for the past three years, conducting a standardized test on my 4- and 5- year-old students to determine their "kindergarten readiness." It used to be that by virtue of turning 5 years old, you were deemed "kindergarten ready." Those days are over. In the name of accountability (which always seems to mean accountability for those with the least say-so), we have turned our schools into test-taking factories, with no child too young to be tested.

Reason No. 3: The day before the strike vote, my school clerk stopped me in the hallway. He had an emergency letter from Jean-Claude Brizard that we had to distribute to parents informing them of why the strike vote was wrong thing for teachers to do and insulting our collective intelligence by claiming that our leadership hadn't informed us of what was at stake in our contract negotiations. The attempt by Brizard to turn parents against teachers was expected, his condescending tone familiar, but what was unheard-of was that the letter was translated into Spanish, Mandarin, Polish and Arabic. As a teacher of English Language Learners, I was dumbfounded. We can never--I repeat, NEVER!-- get materials or information translated into our students' home languages without doing it ourselves. Was this the proverbial final straw? No, I had already made up my mind to vote "yes" because I want dignity, respect and resources for what I do and for the students I teach. But it did underline to me that if they can so easily find the resources to drag us down, then they can be forced to find the resources to build up public education.

Reason No. 4: The $5.2 million in TIF money the city council just handed to billionairess CPS board member and infamous union buster Penny Pritzker to build another Hyatt Hotel for her empire. Resources not there? Yeah, right. I voted "yes" because I have self-respect, and I was always taught (and teach) that when you stand up for yourself against bullies and liars, others will stand up with you. Well, the teachers are standing up. Will you join us?

[Lara Lindh is a Preschool for All teacher in the Chicago Public Schools.]

“There’s a huge disconnect between what the board thinks kids deserve and what parents think kids deserve. Good
teaching conditions are good learning conditions. If teachers go on
strike, many, many hundreds of parents will be on the picket line with
them.” -- Erica Clark, Parents 4 Teachers

“There’s a huge disconnect between what the board thinks kids deserve and what parents think kids deserve. Good
teaching conditions are good learning conditions. If teachers go on
strike, many, many hundreds of parents will be on the picket line with
them.” -- Erica Clark, Parents 4 Teachers

[Bill] Gates also invested $90 million in one of the largest
implementations of the turnaround strategy—Chicago’s Renaissance 2010.
Ren10 gave Chicago public schools CEO Arne Duncan a national name and
ticket to Washington; he took along the reform strategy. Shortly after
he arrived, studies showing weak results for Ren10 began circulating,
but the Chicago Tribune still caused a stir on January 17, 2010, with an article entitled “Daley School Plan Fails to Make Grade.”

Six years after Mayor Richard Daley launched a bold
initiative to close down and remake failing schools, Renaissance 2010
has done little to improve the educational performance of the city's
school system, according to a Tribune analysis of 2009 state test data.

…The moribund test scores follow other less than enthusiastic findings
about Renaissance 2010—that displaced students ended up mostly in other
low performing schools and that mass closings led to youth violence as
rival gang members ended up in the same classrooms. Together, they
suggest the initiative hasn't lived up to its promise by this, its
target year.

Just blocks from Carter's Barbershop in North Lawndale where The Chicago
Reporter sets up camp for its weekly radio show are two schools on the
turnaround and closure list voted on by the Chicago Board of Education
last month.

These schools aren't too different from most of the 17 schools on
Chicago Public School's list of low-performing schools slated for an
overhaul: They're heavily low-income, and most students are of one race.
At Herzl, for example, 97.9 percent of the students come from
households reporting income below the poverty line, and 98.3 percent are
black.

But there's another unifying, and telling, factor to all the schools on
the closure and turnaround list: They are situated in majority black and
brown neighborhoods in the city. Check out this map by Vocalo's Sarah Lu to see the divide. [ed.: click to zoom in.]

Meanwhile, these same neighborhoods see record amounts of youth
violence. Twenty-two communities on Chicago's South, Southwest and West
sides--where the school turnarounds and closures are based--saw nearly
80 percent of the city's youth homicides, according to a recent Reporter investigation.

Coincidence? Research and reporting on the subject says probably not.
Since 2005, thousands of students have been sent to schools outside
their neighborhoods following school closures under Renaissance 2010,
the education reform program launched by former Mayor Richard M. Daley.

"Mr. Jeffries did indeed push the charter school issue in his first
interview with reporters after accepting the Democratic nomination,
saying that he hopes to “use the tax code if need be” to support
parents’ decision to send their children to religious or other
private schools. He also said he supports charter schools."

Only 5% turned out to vote and clearly the numbers show that even if the UFT supported Barron it would not have made a difference. The UFT was "neutral" but there was a semi-glowing article in the NY Teacher favoring Jeffries. But as Mona points out this trend is a hit for public ed and teacher unions.

From Mona Davids:

Jeffries won the election. Check out the first thing he says and
then repeats. Here's two excerpts:

"Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries trounced Councilman Charles Barron in
Tuesday’s Democratic primary for Congress — and promptly said
that his main priorities would be helping homeowners at risk of
foreclosure and, more controversially, using public money to
support parochial and other private schools."

"Mr. Jeffries did indeed push the charter school issue in his first
interview with reporters after accepting the Democratic nomination,
saying that he hopes to “use the tax code if need be” to support
parents’ decision to send their children to religious or other
private schools. He also said he supports charter schools."

Charles Barron didn't lose the race. PUBLIC Education lost today.

Remember to say a BIG THANK YOU to the Working Families Party,
community based organizations, education advocacy groups and all the
unions that endorsed Jeffries for their great assistance in bringing
vouchers to NYS!

As students and teachers finish up the school year in sweltering
heat, legislators in Albany closed their legislative session by passing a
new law regarding the public release of teachers' performance
evaluations. In reaction to the horrific episode in February, where
teachers had erroneous ratings based on flawed data splashed across the
pages of the New York City press, legislators extended a protection
given to some other civil servants that would prevent work evaluations
from being released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Widely heralded as a victory for teachers both by the teacher union
leadership and the antiunion press, this legislative move actually
helps to usher in a new destructive era of standardized testing for our
public school students. First of all, the legislation mandates that
school districts must provide "conspicuous notice" to
advise parents of their right to know their children's teachers'
evaluation results. While the UFT claims that parents have always had
this right, it was a very rare administrator that ever released teacher'
performance information to parents. Now, Mayor Bloomberg has vowed to call every parent in New York City to make them aware that they can access this information.

This will create a poisonous environment within schools, creating
suspicion and dividing parents and teachers who are natural allies in
the struggle for better schools for our students.

No More Standardized Testing!

Furthermore,
the publicity surrounding the deal ignores the overall framework in
which it is occurring, where teacher evaluations will soon be based in
part on scores students receive on standardized tests. In a year where
students have endured hours of expanded "field testing," error-filled
exams, and nonsense questions about talking pineapples, we are now
moving to an era where teachers livelihoods will be determined by growth
and value-added models based on tests, which are unstable metrics that have been shown to vary wildly.

Noah Gotbaum asks essential questions. Then note the section as I tried to follow 3 members of the SUNY Charter School Committee into the elevator as they met with Success Academy's Jenny Sedlis who asked for a private meeting, followed by some brief comments by Noah outside.

Newly appointed chairman Joseph Belluck allowed the community to speak at the meeting, apparently something that has not happened before. This was so embarrassing to Eva Moskowitz -- allowing public comment that exposes her scam -- her agent Jenny asked for a private post meeting meeting with Belluck -- maybe to whip him into line for the next time.

He presented himself as a fair guy, but even if he is that won't last long as the rest of the committee is loaded with pro-charter people, as much of SUNY is.

More video later --- Fios is being installed today so I may be down for some hours.

In the meantime, Leonie posted:

Thanks to the hard work of David Bellel, the SUNY Charter webcast from yesterday is now archived.

Sadly, as originally webcast, the sight and sound is not great and it doesn’t start until after Brooke Parker of WAGPOPs has given most of her brilliant presentation. But the best we have so far until Norm posts his video of what transpired yesterday.

See below; the
only mention I have found in media today of Eva’s victory yesterday of
getting SUNY to approve 6 new schools to add to her empire & to grab
even more space from public school buildings in Manhattan and Brooklyn
(where even Walcott admits there is no room for them ) while her
management fee is raised to 15% -- enabling her to divert even more
taxpayer funds to lobbying, PR and her political operations where she
can further expand her influence (not to mention her already inflated
salary).

Meanwhile
SUNY charter committee was told by the head of the SUNY charter
institute at the meeting yesterday the fairy tale that they should go
along with this, because the schools’ independent board “asked” to be
able to give more money to Eva’s CMO, as though the members of the board
weren’t handpicked by Eva. And after all, these schools have a surplus
of $24 million – so why not?

Finally,
in an interesting sleight of hand, the SUNY charter committee gave over
the authority to approve the fee increase to the Charter Institute,
because the new chair of the committee, Joe Belluck, said he wasn’t
ready to decide on this issue but obviously wasn’t ready to delay the
vote while he informed himself on the issue more thoroughly.

The
full SUNY board gives all the authority over charter matters to the
SUNY charter committee, which then leaves the decision-making up to the
Charter Institute, where the staff continues to behave as they are a
wholly-owned subsidiary of Charter Inc.

And
when it comes to the most controversial issue of co-locations, Rossi
tells the committee that they have no legal jurisdiction (even though
the law says SUNY has to hold hearings on the subject of whether the
space is “appropriate”) and that the siting of schools is merely the
responsibility of DOE.

Talk about passing the buck!

Hopefully
Powell will stay on the story; the NYT badly needs a critical eye on
our schools now that Winerip has been taken off education and the other
NYT ed reporters are all new to the beat and thus vulnerable to be taken
in by DOE and the massively funded and staffed corporate reform PR
spin.

Scores had spiraled downward. Families felt trapped. The end appeared in sight.
She
won grants to pull in counselors, and tutored children at lunchtime,
during recess, on Saturdays. Test scores rose. The school earned A’s on
progress reports. Then her staff proposed to renovate the playground, a
vast expanse of asphalt fissured.
The Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer, gave $180,000 in 2010 for the renovation.
“I called the Department of Education and said: ‘Isn’t this great? We got this money!’ ” she recalled.
An official cut her off: “There’s a lot more money than that coming,” he said. “But Eva Moskowitz has got it.”
In retrospect, this was the moment the center of power — and money — began to shift decisively in this public school building. Eva S. Moskowitz, a former city councilwoman, is chief executive of Success Academy
Charter Schools. One of her handsomely financed schools, Harlem Success
Academy 2 Charter School, occupied the upper floor of the same building
as P.S. 30. Another school, devoted to students with disabilities, also
inhabits this building on East 128th Street.
Ms.
Moskowitz, as Type A and politically connected as any charter operator
in the city, had convinced the City Council to allocate $875,000 to
renovate the same playground. Although the Council speaker, Christine C.
Quinn, says this money was intended for the playground for all three
schools, Harlem Success Academy 2 quickly took ownership.
“They
made it clear they’d already hired an architect and they’d plan it,”
Ms. Melendez-Hutt recalls. “I said, ‘No, no, no, for once you have to
learn to play with others.’ ”
Ms. Moskowitz is a brigadier in the charter school
wars that could define the next mayoral election. Armies mass on either
side. The teachers’ union, parent groups and the organization New York Communities for Change
oppose charter expansion. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has sent a trusted
aide, Micah C. Lasher, to work with the hedge-fund-backed group
StudentsFirstNY to push expansion.
Ms. Moskowitz
embraces life in wartime. She yearns not only to compete, but also to
drive the teachers’ union and some public schools into the East River.
In e-mails several years ago
to the chancellor at the time, Joel I. Klein, obtained by the columnist
Juan Gonzalez of The Daily News, Ms. Moskowitz made clear her views.
“We need,” she wrote, “to quickly and decisively distinguish the good
guys from the bad.”
To this end, she has formed a
network of charters that, with strict discipline and unrelenting
emphasis on high test scores, have posted impressive results.
On
Monday, the trustees of the State University of New York — which
oversees charter schools — gave Ms. Moskowitz permission to open six new
schools. And the trustees increased her network management fee to 15 percent, from 10 percent, which will infuse her quickly expanding empire with millions of dollars.
Her
pell-mell success exacts a toll. Teachers’ hours are brutal, from 7:30
a.m. to 5 p.m., with evenings devoted to marking homework. Teacher
turnover at Harlem Success Academy 2 approached 40 percent last year.
Ms. Moskowitz drives herself no less manically. She lists her salary as
$379,478 and pegs her typical workweek at 70 hours.
Say
this for Ms. Moskowitz: Many students in poor neighborhoods have for
years lacked quality schools; charters perhaps offer useful competition.
She glories in comparing her schools with hapless
public school cousins. “The nice thing about co-location is that you can
put the schools under a microscope,” she says.
Ms.
Melendez-Hutt retired two years ago, and P.S. 30 has gone into a slide.
It received a D grade last year, a fact that Ms. Moskowitz’s staff
noted in e-mails and phone calls. The staff also sent a comparison of
test scores, and it contrasted Success Academy’s wood cubbies and
carpeted classrooms with the dingier halls of the neighbor.
In
essence, I had an immersion in the same hard sell parents are given.
Only nuance was missing. P.S. 30 students are distinctly poorer, and a
far higher proportion receive special education. Its veteran staff
members themselves outfitted a fine library with sofas and chairs.
Then
there’s that playground. A handsome soccer field with artificial turf
dominates the yard, as Ms. Moskowitz desired. P.S. 30 obtained one of
its four desired basketball courts, which occupies a corner near the
door.
“It was a very long, drawn-out process,” Ms. Moskowitz said. “It’s all about the art of compromise.”
No doubt.
E-mail: powellm@nytimes.com
Twitter: @powellnyt

You may not know about Change the Stakes, a committee of GEM working to end the devastating use of high stakes testing. We have been busy for almost a year now and have felt as though we are part of the movement that is shifting the dialog, even if in small ways, around issues of testing. We are certainly part of a national movement.Please visit our website, sign our petition, "Like" us on Facebook and join our open forum.

We encourage you to spread the word about all of the above and consider joining us atour next CTS meeting on July 13! We look forward to expanding our outreach as we
begin organizing for the 2012-2013 school year ahead.Have a wonderful summer,

Even the offer of free drinks, appetizers, and
mini-cupcakes by Baked by Melissa atop a rooftop hotel is not enough. Well, the E4E crew is escalating the prizes with bowling raffles and even Five Napkin Burger, which may be enough to get me to sign the pledge to give away all teacher rights.

I love the "teacher voice" part --- as long as you don't disagree with E4E. I might even make it over there so Evan and Sydney can call hotel security to throw me out. Or maybe send in my bunch of spies to start a food fight.

I met a teacher the other day who used to baby sit for Sydney. I won't share what I suggested she should have done. (Hint: it involves a plastic bag.)

We are also
delighted to give you the chance to win awesome raffle prizes, courtesy
of local businesses that also want to show their appreciation for
teachers. Featured raffle prices include gift certificates from:

STATE UNIVERSITY of New York officials on Monday granted a hefty fee increase to the charter school company run by former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz.

The SUNY Board’s Charter Schools Committee decided — without a vote — to allow Harlem Success Academy Charter Schools to increase its per-pupil fee from $1,350 to $2,000 to run charter schools in Harlem, the Bronx and Brooklyn.

Committee Chairman Joseph Belluck said a vote was not needed because SUNY trustees had recently authorized the staff of its Charter Schools Institute to approve any management fee increases for charter schools.

The fee increase will not cost taxpayers additional money, but rather give Moskowitz’s company a larger share of the state dollars already headed to the schools.

Cynthia Proctor, a spokeswoman for the Charter Schools Institute, said the request was approved after a “rigorous” review determined it would not harm the fiscal health of the schools.

Moskowitz has argued her network was running a financial “shortfall” and needed the fee increase to maintain its high level of service.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Check the back page of the main section of today's NY Times. Of course, the problem with education is that we need to build better teachers because the ones we have are doing such a lousy job. The back page lists lots of ed deformers (Kristof, Brooks, Kenny) and a few true reformers. Delve into the panels and we do find Monty Neill and semi-reformer Pedro Noguera. I would love to get to ask Kenny about her teacher turnover and student attrition rates. http://nytschoolsfortomorrow.com/agenda.php

According to the Trib report, the big money behind the attacks on Chicago teachers and their union is the group Democrats For Education Reform (DFER), run by NewYork hedge-funders Whitney Tilson and Ravenel Boykin Curry IV. The group continues to be a big player in the Obama election campaign and is the main force for school privatization, vouchers and privately-run charter schools, within the Democratic Party. They are also major supporters of Rahm's longer-school-day-with-no-pay-for-teachers initiative

More importantly, the Trib report shows that despite denials and evasions, the mayor has knowingly and unabashedly supported the anti-union campaign which is being run by his own political operatives like AKPD's John Kupper. Kupper admits his firm is on retainer with Emanuel's political organization, and state records show The Chicago Committee, one of Emanuel's campaign fundraising organizations, paid Axelrod's old firm more than $21,000 in the first quarter of 2012 for "professional services/consulting."

As for DFER:

Officials at Democrats for Education Reform said the group's Illinois state director, Rebeca Nieves Huffman, also has not talked to Emanuel about the ads and "doesn't coordinate with him." In May the mayor was photographed with Huffman at a school reform summit in California, but Huffman spokeswoman Megan Jacobs characterized that as a chance encounter.

The two Trib reporters also shine a light on Emanuel political operative Greg Goldner (behind Rahm's use of paid protesters) and billionaire backers Penny Pritzker and Bruce Rauner.

Emanuel's emphasis on schools fits with the long-held agenda of a number of his wealthiest political supporters. They include Penny Pritzker, now a member of the Board of Education, and venture capitalist Bruce Rauner, whose wife, Diana, an early education expert, served on Emanuel's transition team.

Rauner was instrumental in bringing the reform group Stand for Children to Illinois. That organization helped pass the law setting a higher bar for a teachers' strike and also has criticized the teachers union for taking the strike authorization vote.

to celebrate this as a win, is akin to the South declaring a victory
during a skirmish in the closing days of the Civil War. This isn’t a
win, it’s a tourniquet. It may stop the bleeding temporarily, but
once gangrene sets in we’re doomed.

Oliver Hardy is well know for looking at Stan Laurel, who appears clueless, and with a frustrated tone exclaims, “another nice mess you got us into!”

Nothing could be more fitting, than Ollie’s words when I look at the predicament teachers all across New York State are in right now.

This past week the following statement of American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten following passage of the teacher privacy bill by both houses of the New York Legislature had heads spinning. She stated,

Who are they kidding?? Teacher’s all across the state are suppose to celebrate legislation that allow, evaluations based on junk science, and may determine their future livelihoods, to be released to parents as a good thing?

Let’s keep in mind, this legislation was quickly negotiated to fix a much greater threat. The courts already declared that these evaluations can be released to the media, and something needed to be done. So in that light, it could have been much worse. But to celebrate this as a win, is akin to the South declaring a victory during a skirmish in the closing days of the Civil War. This isn’t a win, it’s a tourniquet. It may stop the bleeding temporarily, but once gangrene sets in we’re doomed.

The way I look at it, our unions (we) negotiated ourselves into this nice mess.We negotiated a deal that allowed teachers to be evaluated using junk science.

Even though there is no evidence that supports Value Added Measures as a means of calculating teacher effectiveness, we agreed to it.

We negotiated rubrics that will be used in teacher evaluations, yet many of these rubrics are untested.

We agreed to test and re-test models to measure our own effectiveness.

We stood by, while our students were subjected to 90 hours of testing.

We’re embracing the Common Core Standards as a means to magically make our students college and career ready.

We dare not exclaim Race to the Top, is really a race to nowhere, because politically we must remain loyal until November.

We stand by while charters eat away at public education, and even at times support our own charter schools.

So here we are, standing arm in arm with Governor Cuomo, praising his acumen in negotiating this deal. Forgetting that his tax cap policies have caused thousand of teachers all across the state to lose their jobs. Forgetting that his education commissioner is a pro charter advocate. Forgetting that his flawed teacher evaluation plan is nothing more than an attempt to circumvent tenure. Here we are standing there.

UFT Election Vote Comparison: 2004-10

A Personal Historical Perspective

Why Karen Lewis Reads Ed Notes

"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Hedges says, There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history.

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

GEM's Julie Cavanagh Debates E4E member on NY1 on LIFO and Seniority

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy TysonProfessor of African American Studies and HistoryDuke University

A Familiar Voice on Unions

"We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike"- Adolf Hitler, May 2, 1933

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Outsource our children

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

Teacher Value-Added Data Dumping by Norm Scott

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

From Sharon Higgins

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Video of Chicago's George Schmidt and CORE Shredding Arne Duncan and the Chicago Corporate Model

Great Post on Teacher Quality at the Morton School

I'm very tired of the myth that schools are bursting at the seams with apathetic, unskilled, surly, child-hating losers who can't get jobs doing anything else. I recently figured that, counting high school and college where one encounters many teachers in the course of a year, I had well over 100 teachers in my lifetime, and I can only say that one or two truly had no place being in a classroom.